Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-14-Speech-2-189"
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"en.20060214.26.2-189"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, there are three things I should like to say at the very outset. For a start, seldom has any European legislative measure polarised European societies to such a degree, and so I give all the more credit to Mrs Gebhardt, the rapporteur, for having succeeded in taking the edge off the Commission draft. I have to say, though – and this brings me to my third point – that this has been done to the detriment of clarity and legal certainty in this framework directive. If you want a reason for that, you only have to look at the material she had to work with, for the Commission’s draft is opaque and scarcely comprehensible, the precise opposite of ‘better regulation’. That is something that needed to be spelled out.
It is unfortunate that this House was unable to concentrate on what was fundamental and feasible. That we need a European framework directive on services is not a matter of dispute. The provision of services across borders brings with it many problems that cannot be solved, as such matters formerly were, through the law courts, but need to be dealt with by those who have authority to enact European legislation, namely Parliament and the Council. The threat inherent in what we have before us is that they will end up before the judges again.
There are alternatives – clear and simple alternatives that do, as is intended, reduce the bureaucracy involved in cross-border service provision. Our proposal, which the rapporteur supported for some considerable time, is essentially bipartite, involving, on the one hand, this directive being explicitly limited to commercial services, with due regard being given to existing legislation of relevance to them. What are termed services of general interest – and let me say for Commissioner McCreevy’s benefit, that by these I mean services for the benefit of all and in their general economic interest – should be described and dealt with in a separate directive, for they do not belong in this one.
In place of such a clear demarcation, we have at present a catalogue of individual derogations. It still does not include everything: it does not include education; the position of social services is yet to be resolved, as does that of the building of social housing. Some services are excluded altogether; others – such as the major services provided by grids or networks – only partially. The whole thing adds up to a patchwork of individual rules and regulations, making any overview of the whole difficult and lacking in transparency and legal certainty, and it has been the latter that everyone has had something to say about today. It is above all the small and medium-sized businesses that need it, or else they will not invest, and consumers will not buy their products.
Our proposal also has to do with Article 16, the country-of-origin principle, which is such a bone of contention. To this too there could have been a simple and clear alternative, in the shape of the opening-up of market access for services based on the country-of-origin principle for the EU as a whole, but combined with the proviso that the services would have to be provided in accordance with local laws and standards. Instead of that, the Great Coalition is currently proposing a regulation that refrains from naming the country-of-origin principle and instead opens up markets by outlawing certain local restrictions, yet this too leads to unresolved issues, with a lack of clarity and certainty about what the law actually is, and leaving the last word to the courts. We cannot endorse this draft directive. It does not encourage confidence in Europe’s ability to make its own laws, and by it, this House is undermining itself."@en1
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